Sariah Wilson on Writing A Tribute of Fire

By Sariah Wilson, author of A Tribute of Fire

When I say I love Greek mythology, I really, really love it. In seventh grade I competed in the district’s Language Arts Field Day as the Greek mythology specialist (yes, I was that big of a nerd. And we had school jackets and everything). 

A few years ago I was writing a rom com, The Seat Filler, which is about a girl-next-door type meeting her favorite celebrity. I wanted to write a line about the female main character feeling like Cassandra, a prophetess from Greek mythology who was cursed to always know the future but to never be believed. I wasn’t sure that I was using the reference correctly and looked it up quickly on Wikipedia. I quickly got drawn into the story of Cassandra, especially what happened to her after the Trojan War. 

She was a Trojan princess who repeatedly tried to warn her people (but no one listened) and when the Greeks began to overrun the city, Cassandra went to Athena’s temple to claim sanctuary, throwing her arms around the goddess’s statue. Ajax the Lesser violently assaulted Cassandra and then dragged her out of the temple, knocking Athena’s statue over in the process, committing two acts of blasphemy. Athena demanded the Greeks punish Ajax the Lesser but they refused—women were nothing but spoils of war to them (with Odysseus being the lone dissenter). 

Furious, Athena worked with Poseidon and Zeus to destroy most of the Greek fleet as retribution. Ajax the Lesser did not escape her wrath—she borrowed a lightning bolt from her father and sank his ship. He somehow survived by clinging to a rock and unwisely boasted that not even the gods could kill him. Poseidon answered by tearing the rock apart and dragging Ajax down to the bottom of the ocean floor and drowning him. 

Athena decreed that Ajax’s nation, Locris, would be responsible for replacing the priestess that Ajax had taken from her. Greek law demanded that repayment be double of whatever was lost, so every year Locris was to send two maidens to serve as priestesses in Athena’s temple. 

Then there was the line that jumped out at me and started me down the road of writing this book—

“But only if they made it there alive.” 

What did that mean? The entry had no explanation. My brain went into overdrive as I began to imagine the kernels of the story that became A Tribute of Fire. I searched and searched and found very little information about the Locrian maidens, who were real. But I had never heard of them before, despite my obsession with Greek mythology. They were sent from Locris to Troy for a thousand years to serve as priestesses, but Athena had given the men of the city permission to hunt the maidens and kill them before they could reach the temple. 

The Locrians tried repeatedly to circumvent the rule—they refused to send maidens at all and a serious plague was visited upon them and half their population died. The oracle at Delphi told them that the only way to chase off the plague was to send the maidens. They attempted to send infants, thinking the men wouldn’t kill the babies, but that didn’t stop them. They sent pregnant women. They met the same fate. Nothing would stay the Trojans’ hands. This annual tribute went on for a thousand years. 

We have numerous historical texts that speak about the Locrian maiden tribute. King Antigonus literally set into stone rules regarding the maidens and the Aianteioi—the descendants of Ajax the Lesser. We know the tribute took place. Scholars argue over whether it was a ceremonial ritual where the maidens were unharmed or if they were truly hunted and slaughtered in the streets. (I tend to think that there wouldn’t have been so much resistance and attempts at subterfuge if the Locrian maidens were simply returned home after serving for a year.) It was difficult to do research as this isn’t a topic that’s been widely examined. (One professor of classical antiquities that I spoke with, hoping he might point me in the right direction of more books/articles to read, told me that I probably knew more about the Locrian maidens than he did.) 

I started to wonder why the ceremony had stopped. What could have happened to make a thousand-year long ritual suddenly cease? And I got the image in my head of a princess training for the race to the temple, determined to beat the men hunting her, so that she could save her nation. Angry that she was being punished for the sins of a man long since dead and determined to protect the people she loves. 

And it was a great reminder that you never know where your next story idea might come from. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sariah Wilson is the USA Today bestselling author of Hypnotized by Love, Almost Like Being in Love, The Hollywood Jinx, The Chemistry of Love, The Paid Bridesmaid, The Seat Filler, Roommaid, Just a Boyfriend, the Royals of Monterra series, and the #Lovestruck novels. She happens to be madly, passionately in love with her soulmate and is a fervent believer in happily ever afters—which is why she writes romance. She currently lives with her family and various pets in Utah, and harbors a lifelong devotion to ice cream. For more information, visit her website at sariahwilson.com.

A Tribute of Fire (The Eye of the Goddess Book 1)

“A Tribute of Fire is a must-read…” —Jennifer L. Armentrout, #1 New York Times and international bestselling author.

The fate of a cursed nation depends on a princess who must outwit a mortal enemy and outlast the trials of a death-defying ritual in a thrilling adventure by USA Today bestselling author Sariah Wilson.

Lia is the princess of Locris, a dying desert nation cursed centuries ago by an earth goddess—one still worshipped by the thriving and adversarial nation of Ilion. Every year, Ilion offers the goddess a sacrifice: two Locrian maidens forced to compete in a life-and-death race to reach her temple. In a millennium, no maiden has made it out of Ilion alive. This year, Lia is one of the hunted.

An education in battle gives her a fighting chance, but the challenges are greater than she feared: Lia’s beloved but untrained sister Quynh has been put in the path of danger. The winding streets of Ilion itself have been transformed into a labyrinthine maze of countless choices and dead ends. And if the risks weren’t significant enough, Lia is reluctantly drawn to the commandingly attractive Jason, an Ilionian sailor she loathes to trust and desires like no man before.

The tribute game is on. It’s up to Lia to lift the goddess’s curse, restore Locris to its former glory, and change the fate of every young woman destined to follow in her path.

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Category: On Writing